I love food, but lately as restaurant experiences have felt trite and routine, and many menus exist as lightly sketched carbon-copies or direct plagiarism of others (I see you avocado toast, steak tartar), I’ve been asking myself if there anything better than being present to the bliss of one enthralled in the moody grooves? The spontaneous explosion of motion triggered by brainwaves reacting to gratifying beats. A busker that instils—even for a brief 2 minute pause between point A and B—the complete attention and bodily surrender to swing to the sounds. Or the much anticipated 90 minute session of the band you’ve played over and over again for years, and in kismet conjunction of time and space, that land in your city, resulting in tickets for you and another.
I haven’t talked much about music on this newsletter, but it’s an integral part of who I am: my cultural references, my day to day cadence, and has certainly informed how I move through the world. It’s interesting to consider how rhythm incorporates within us, how certain disciplines or flows might impact our bodies’ design and manifestation. I participated in contemporary dance as a child, and my mother has always told me that that early act of repositioning my bare-feet on cold marble dance floors, corrected my turned-in feet. Through my teenage years, my best friends and I took advantage of recently obtained independence and drivers’ licenses to see local and national names at the most infamous and grungiest nightclubs of Washington, DC and Baltimore; walking out of stuffy, sweat-riddled black boxes with buzzing ears, stubbed toes, and tobacco saturated hair. I can still feel my damp skin adapt to the chills of autumn, in a brisk drop from 80F degree club atmospheres to 42F night air, our own breath curling into plumes of white-grey puffs. This went on for :formative: years: cargo pants, Vans or black suede Pumas, bleach and hair dye, trying my best interpretation of outfits from a dELiA*s catalogue acquired from random after school visits to the thrift shop. But it didn’t matter what you wore ultimately, because you left drenched in the environment you simmered in, and your dreams, later that evening, might even be imbued by the bouncing and pouncing of recalled footwork and arm raises. Punk, two-tone ska beats, hip-hop, electronic—we gobbled up genres, as we discovered our own boundaries of corporal flexibility, musical pleasure, and moving in murmurations of mosh-pits, swing dancing circles, or getting caught up in mercurial surges towards the barricades and front-stage.
If we dance a particular genre, our form might evolve to mimic the structure necessary for such movements, maybe they are prominent and noticeable like the swimmer’s back I’ve maintained since adolescence, or more subtle but impactful changes such as those of hip flexibility or finger mobility. But I say all this because I recognise more as of late that what I’m moving to, in turn moves me. Moves me to stretch a way that was unfamiliar before, moves me to crave more of a particular environment—and this newfound—or revisited—idea of music and movement, are unconsciously altering my consumption habit as well. It’s all occurring rather somatically as I’ve been getting back to my concert roots.
At some point I will make time to roll on the floor, and leap and jump, as I once did in modern dance class, but to date, most of my recent movement exercises have come from concert attendances. What has struck me as curious in witnessing my own vibrations undulating out from an unknown precise “centre” (where does whole body movement start?), is to experience how these movements are impacted by nearby dancers, rhythm-hoppers, and sound seekers. Acting as individuals with collective patterns.
Of course the goal of these bands is to make beautiful things, to release energy and talent into the world, to make sense of senseless existence through—when done well—lyrical poetry and sound waves. But I believe the testament to its success is if it moves us. A bop of the head, a swing of the hips, a single tear that falls when nostalgia transports us from the harmony of a song to the remembrance of past loves.
Good food is musical. That “mmm mmh mmmhhh” of the chocolate mousse sliding off the spoon, or to countless pastry chefs’ chagrin— the “oooooo” of witnessing the lava cake break its outer-shell and ooze its warm ganache contents in front of eager spectators. Desserts—like concerts—are generally shared, adding to the communal affair of witness, movement, and awe.
In whatever you make, in whatever you bring to the tasting table or DJ booth, seek to move. And in a season where—if we’re lucky enough to have safety, abundance, fluidity of body and soul, and plethora of foodstuff—we can choose to move, to be swept up by the capricious and delightful melodies that surround us; let’s be moved.
Will you join me in this dance of hedonism? What foods, tunes, or worldly experiences are moving you through the end of the year lovelies?